Maze
by Miselena
Summary: The FBI's latest art theft case unexpectedly rolls out of control. Now Neal and Peter must attempt to thwart the man behind the money before he destroys their case and their trust in each other. No slash.
1. Chapter 1

***** I do not own White Collar or any of its characters*****

******No Beta, all mistakes are mine******

A low, insistent buzzing woke Peter Burke from pre-dawn slumber. He reached out blearily with his left arm to shut off the annoying noise, hoping to avoid disturbing Elizabeth. "Burke," he answered his cell phone, his face still glued to his pillow. Elizabeth made a soft, irritated sound and rolled over on her side of the bed. Unfortunately, an FBI agent and his family had to get used to middle-of-the-night phone calls.

"Peter?" The voice on the line hissed urgently.

"Caffrey? Why the hell are you calling me at three a.m.?" Peter hissed back, hauling his feet onto the carpeted floor. He'd hoped not to wake his wife and planned to move to another room, but at the mention of Neal's name she turned again, blinking sleep from her eyes. Too late.

"Ah, there's been a breakthrough in the case."

"There better be."

"Edwards had me followed after our meeting."

"Damn." A seed of unease began to grow in Peter's chest. The investigation into Harry Edwards turned hot early in the week as underground rumors flew regarding a certain infamous stolen Vermeer. FBI contacts suspected that the missing painting, "The Concert," was about to resurface—or at least vault up a few levels—from whichever dredges it currently inhabited. Edwards was the suspected seller, and Caffrey insisted he'd never met the guy.

"I met with a friend for drinks and they caught me in a dark patch on my way home. Here's the good news: I just escaped. I'm trying to find my way out of this maze of a mansion. The bad news: they know who I am."

"Neal, you insisted he didn't know you!"

Neal sighed, and Peter rolled his eyes. Right, the long-suffering Neal Caffrey. "I don't know him. He doesn't know me, not directly anyway. He probably knows _of_ me, it's hard not to. Apparently one of his thugs has seen me before, on some other job. So they followed me, kicked me around a little and stuffed me in the trunk. Then they handcuffed me to some pipes in a basement. Morons."

Peter would have chuckled, too, if the seriousness of the situation didn't rain on the mood. He knew too well that a simple set of handcuffs wouldn't hold Neal Caffrey for long. "Are you all right? Where are you?"

"I'm a little beat up, but I'll be fine. I'm just trying to find a way out without going upstairs, a place like this will have secret passages all over—"

Peter heard a loud crash and a distant yell interrupt his partner, and the unease welled up with a surprising jolt. "Neal?"

"Yeah, I think they just figured out I'm gone," he heard Caffrey whisper before his phone clicked back into silence.

Peter swore under his breath and immediately rushed at his closet, yanking on the first items of clothing he saw. "What's happening? What's up with Neal?" Elizabeth asked, now sitting up on the bed as she watched her husband's frenzy with concern.

"He'll be all right," Peter answered with confidence as he scrambled to button his shirt, even though fear threatened to constrict his nerve. "I've got to get to the office," he added as he pulled on the other shoe and headed for the front door, sending one last apologetic look in Elizabeth's direction.

*********

Neal pocketed the phone and continued creeping down the hall. He could hardly believe the stupidity of those two goons. They hadn't bothered searching him. Edwards probably told them he never carried weapons. Overconfidence had plagued the old man for as long as Neal could remember.

Yes, Neal knew a bit about Edwards. He hadn't quite told Peter the truth in that short conversation. First, "a little beat up" was a tiny understatement. A rapidly purpling bruise bloomed on his jaw where the larger thug first hit him in the street. He'd keeled over in complete surprise, and he suspected the crack of his head on the pavement caused his occasionally blurring and spinning vision now. Once he was down they'd kicked at him until he could hardly breathe, let alone resist as they threw him into the back of a van. Either Edwards didn't trust his henchmen with weapons or he wanted to inflict a little pain. Neal suspected both. Luckily his current adrenaline levels kept the headache and the fire in his ribs to distant, smoldering charcoal.

Second, Neal's relationship with Edwards wasn't exactly nonexistent. True, they'd never seen one another's faces, but they'd been not-so-secret rivals for years. Neal stole an artifact, Edwards stole another. Their names took up enough space in the underworld to knock elbows. Neal always took it as token of pride that the FBI (and Peter Burke) thought he was the priority to capture. Edwards, with an intelligence level only a hair shy of Neal's, trumped the convict in terms of age, experience, wealth, cynicism, cruelty, and the trivial little matter of freedom. The man had so much money he lived in a high-profile mansion and bribed any suspicions into silence. In his early days he'd been violent, committing more low-brow crimes, but now it was usually all an exchange of money for old stolen artifacts. Violence, apparently, was reserved especially for old friends like Neal Caffrey.

Neal plastered his back and limbs against the right wall of the hallway, feeling for abnormalities that might be a secret door. He didn't just suspect Edwards of building a mansion with secret tunnels, he _knew_ it. The rich man's paranoia topped that of five potheads dropped suddenly in the parking lot of a police station. He was taking a chance checking only one wall, but sooner or later the meatheads would figure out which way he'd gone. If he tried to study both walls in the dark, he'd never reach the end. Plus, the sensitivity of a fingertip was far superior to his blurring night vision.

Neal's probing hands finally found an irregularity in the wall. He'd been expecting a fine crack but this piece protruded quite a lot. Neal forced his eyes to focus, finding not a secret passageway but a rather obvious set of oak double doors. Whatever room lay beyond presented a fifty-fifty chance of either helping his escape or trapping him.

Fifty percent was enough to coax him out of the echoing and endless hallway. Neal pulled down on the handle, grateful that the door opened and shut behind him without so much as a squeak. Neal leaned against it for a moment, trying to see into the black expanse. No windows here, once again. Edwards valued his privacy. Neal still heard the distant sounds of angry voices, but without the reverberation outside they seemed much less urgent. Neal reminded himself that they were still idiots without guns. Now that he was expecting an attack, he'd handle it efficiently.

As soon as he thought of the aforementioned hateful weapon, however, his alert hearing registered the smooth, ominous click of a handgun's hammer. A lamp in the corner flooded the room with yellow light, stinging Neal's eyes and stabbing through his forehead, bouncing around his skull painfully. Like a magnet, the shiny silver Magnum drew his barely-adjusted eyes. Slowly he connected the gun to the hand, the hand to the steely arm, the arm to an Armani-clad body, and the body to the silver-haired, smirking head of Harry Edwards.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hello, Neal Caffrey." Spoken as if savored, like a delicious delicacy.

If Neal had not been frozen with fear as he continued to stare into the barrel of the hateful weapon, he would have made a mental joke about creepy mansion owners. All of his thoughts concentrated on simply raising his hands into the air and pasting on his trademark, charming smile. Hollywood makes light of pointing guns in all directions, but really coming face to face with a loaded pistol is one of life's scariest situations. The person with their finger on the trigger has everyone else's future in his hands. That was only one of the reasons why Neal hated guns.

"Harry," Neal nodded. "Long time no see." After the initial rush, Neal observed Edwards' expression and determined that he was not about to be shot immediately. The man wanted to bask in glory for a while, as long as Neal remained focused and out of the realm of panic, anyway. _Please, Peter, hurry_, he urged silently.

"You're good, Caffrey," Edwards continued, still grinning with malicious triumph behind his extended arm. "I was really convinced, yesterday afternoon, that you were a legitimate buyer. But I couldn't get the name 'Gary Griffith' out of my head, like I'd heard it before somewhere. So I had you followed."

Neal would have done the same, if he owned a personal squad of expendables.

"And in the meantime, the revelation came! Years ago, at least five, when some kid named Griffith beat me to the Lily Diamond after I'd planned to take it for weeks, my contacts found me a real name: Neal Caffrey. Now the same Griffith shows up, and I put the pieces together and discovered that Neal Caffrey now works with the FBI." Edwards' gun hand relaxed loosely at his side, and he had taken a step closer to Neal. Even without having to go cross-eyed looking at it, the gun still commanded the room. Neal held his ground, resisting the instinct to shrink back.

"I know you don't think I'm stupid enough to let that pseudonym get by. So why'd you do it? You put yourself and your little FBI friends at risk. A joke at my expense? Or did you _want_ me to blow your cover?"

Neal risked a wink. "Oh, a little of both." He started to suspect that Edwards had some kind of all-encompassing plan behind all of this explanation. The good: there would be no shooting without very specific reason. The bad: super-intelligent criminals with plans never spelled easy victory.

Edwards only appeared more satisfied with his prisoner's cheeky response. "Well, if you were looking for a little personal competition once and for all, you've got it." He raised the gun to Neal's face again, and then waved it at the bookcase in the right corner of the room. "Over there."

Neal did as he was told, the Magnum pointed at the small of his back, noting for the first time that he appeared to be in some kind of small library room containing several bookcases, armchairs and coffee tables. Of course, the entrance to the secret tunnel always opened after someone removed a random book from a shelf. Could the guy be any more cliché?

"Moby Dick. The dark green one. Remove it." As soon as Neal slid the pristine, obviously unread book from between its neighbors on the top shelf, a soft click issued from somewhere within the wall. Edwards grabbed the edge of the structure and swung the whole bookcase out into the room as if it were a hinged door, revealing the entrance to a tunnel. The light from the library illuminated a wood plank floor with neatly squared dirt walls and ceiling. That meant they were definitely underground. Neal wished he could see further, but the tunnel curved to the right anyway, limiting his view to twenty feet.

"I always knew I appreciated your taste in literature and all things art, Harry," Neal commented casually, "But I expected better than a bookcase secret passage from you. Are you showing me out?"

If the Magnum were a living being, it would have been breathing loudly and uncomfortably in Neal's ear. "Oh no. This might be a way out, and it might not. I could tell you, but I thought we were going to have a little fun." Mock disappointment. Neal's nervousness started to creep back into awareness, and he waited in silence for Edwards to go on.

"I let you keep your cell phone and your anklet just for our game. You can call your FBI buddies or your underground pals, even your mother. I don't care. You'll be going this way, most likely lost in my tunnels. I designed them, I know them like the back of my hand. I know exactly how to get out, while anyone pursuing me will be stuck in the maze. You can call, but you won't be able to tell them where you are. I, however, am taking another route. I am taking the entrance in the kitchen, in the cabinet next to the refrigerator. Go ahead, you can call and tell them that, too. Thing is, I'm betting your life that they'll leave you to rot down here while they try to follow me. You're only a consultant, and a convict at that."

"And what's to keep me from just following you out after you leave? Is there even cell reception in there?" Neal feared the fakeness of the grin on his face started to become visible. He did not like the direction in which this game was going at all. Narrow underground passages with zero lighting or moving air would make anyone claustrophobic. Add that to a complete loss of direction and an indefinite time period, and the thing had the potential to cause mental illness. Neal's aching head swam just thinking about it.

"My guards will be outside those doors by now. I've given them their weapons back. If you walk through the door you came in, they will shoot you. This tunnel is the only other way out, as there are no windows or air vents big enough to fit through. As for reception, I've got more money than you'll ever see and this is the twenty-first century."

Edwards jabbed the muzzle of the gun at the con man's temple, and Neal couldn't help but wince at the added irritant to his head. He stumbled diagonally two steps into the tunnel and then turned, only to glimpse Edwards' gleeful smirk one last time as he began to pull on the hinged bookcase. "Have fun, kid," were the last words Neal heard before the tunnel lost all traces of light.

*************

"The tracker still reads him smack in the middle of that mansion," Jones reported from his station as he watched the red dot blink steadily on the screen. "We still don't know what room he's in. That's a four-story building, and he could be on any floor. I thought Caffrey called you using his cell phone?"

Peter faced the opposite side of the vehicle, leaning over a blueprint of Edwards' property. He had decided to skip the office altogether in favor of a van and a large team. "Yeah, he did, but I don't want him getting unwanted attention from an incoming call. It would be better if I contact Edwards directly. See if you can get someone to answer the land line in there."

"I've tried the land line several times, no one is picking up," Cruz answered instead.

Peter's phone rang, and everyone in the van paused to stare as he took a good look at the word "restricted" on the caller I.D. before pushing send. "Burke."

"Agent Burke, I presume you have my mansion crawling with your little taskforce by now?"

Peter would have known the oily voice of Harry Edwards anywhere. Somehow it both reassured and sickened him to hear it now, sounding so sure of itself. "Edwards? Where's my partner? I'm sure we can negotiate some—"

"Oh, no, no, Agent Burke," Edwards interrupted silkily. "Your _consultant_ is no longer in my custody. I let him go, but I'm not sure when he'll find his way out. I just called to assure you that you won't need to employ a real negotiator or extra forces or anything else, because I'm leaving. You—"

Two loud beeps from the earpiece drowned out Edwards' next few words. Peter pulled the receiver away from his ear, seeing Neal Caffrey's name on the conflicting call. Peter frowned, unable to switch calls on a high profile criminal about to escape.

"—sure you'll hear from Mr. Caffrey soon." _Click_. Peter's frown became a full-on scowl. Now he had missed both Edwards' speech and Neal's call. It was probably just a few sentences of gloating, but there might have been some clues hidden within that speech. Why had he kidnapped Caffrey and led the FBI to his house just to let the convict go? Frustrated and wondering whether Neal had told him the whole story, he dialed Caffrey's number.

**Thank you for the reviews! I would love more, especially since this chapter has so much more dialogue. **


	3. Chapter 3

*****I do not own White Collar or its characters.*****

**A few things: 1. I know nothing about real FBI procedures, just fyi. 2. I feel a little bad about all the cliffhangers, but the way the story is sectioning out I don't think there's anywhere I can leave off that isn't a cliffhanger. That said, I'm sorry if this is another one but I hope you enjoy anyway!**

The back side of the bookcase wouldn't budge. The absolute darkness prevented him from trying to find any sort of secret trigger, but Neal doubted the possibility. These tunnels existed to facilitate escape, not return. He rested his forehead briefly against the eternally closed door, focusing on breathing calmly and ignoring the fiery jabbing sensation at his ribs as he did so. He could whine about his injuries later, it wasn't like he was shot or bleeding. First, he needed to get himself out of this mess.

A few sad options came to his attention. The first was to wander off into this so-called maze of tunnels and hope to end up outside somehow. Not particularly appealing. He could wait here for someone to find him using the tracker, but with the uncomfortably narrow space and pitch black air, Neal couldn't stand to remain in one place much longer.

He knew he should call Peter. Neal dreamt of seeing Edwards behind bars almost as badly as the FBI. He wanted Edwards to recognize the pseudonym, but he had not anticipated a reaction of this caliber. Neal could tell the man used to enjoy miniature battles of wits, even if he liked violence a little too much. In the past, he'd often tried and often succeeded in one-upping the local competition.

What triggered Neal's rash decision to engage in combat? He wanted a little thrill and a little revenge. Again, his impulsiveness caused him trouble. He expected the experienced thief to disappear when he figured out Neal's identity and confirmed an FBI threat. He hadn't counted on Edwards going completely insane in the last ten years. The huge mansion was typical. Also typical was the money and smarts to avoid investigation. Neal wished he could live the easy life, too, but secret escape tunnels and an army of questionable bodyguards went a crossed the border of reasonable paranoia into mild psychosis. The excessive amount of guns sealed Neal's opinion. Guns sucked the happiness and purpose out of everything.

_Call Peter…_ Neal had it on speed dial. Now that Peter was awake and in full agent mode, he probably smelled something fishy about the whole situation. Unfortunately, the older man had a sixth sense when it came to Neal's mind.

Neal listened to Peter's phone ring five times before reverting to voicemail. He hung up before the beep. If Peter couldn't be bothered to answer his call, Neal needed to do something proactive, or anything to keep from losing it in maze from hell.

Using his phone as a light, Neal pushed off from the door and headed toward the ominous curve ahead. Once he turned the corner, he found only more tunnel. _Panic will not help anything,_ Neal told himself. The vibration of his phone only thirty seconds later was almost the buzzing of heaven.

"Peter." he said, now using the full volume of his voice. The dead air and dirt walls destroyed all echo.

"Where are you, Neal?"

"I'm in a tunnel."

"…A what?"

"Edwards built escape tunnels underground. He locked me in one of them. He said they're hard to navigate. He's using one to escape; he said it's the entrance in the kitchen in a cabinet."

"I'm on it, Neal, but where are you? Your tracker says you're moving. Stay put and we can come get you."

"First of all, I can't just sit here and wait for you all to catch Edwards and then find me. It's like being squeezed through a very dark tube down here. Second of all, I might find something useful."

"Useful?! You're not useful if you're wasting away lost in some tunnel underground. And by the way, you've got some explaining to do when you get out of there. Edwards is the kind of criminal that would shoot an FBI undercover man, not lock him in an escape tunnel."

"Sorry Peter, my battery is running low." Neal hung up. Explanation avoided, for now. His phone actually had two bars worth of battery juice. What interested him now was the fork in the tunnel he saw looming up ahead. He hoped it wasn't just double vision.

**********

Peter sent a squad out to search the perimeter of the mansion and the grounds for anything suspicious: structures, trapdoors, even the butler. He knew they probably wouldn't find anything, but he had to take all precautions before he prepared to enter the lair of Harry Edwards. In a few minutes, he, Jones and a handful of other agents would storm the kitchen in search of the entrance to these supposed tunnels. Even if Edwards lied to Neal about his whereabouts, they could at least check to see if such door in a kitchen cabinet existed.

Peter hated the situation. He would much rather find Neal, who had a sure location, before going after Edwards together. But he had his orders from Hughes, and Caffrey gave no indication that he was in any immediate danger. _And we still have the tracker,_ Peter reassured himself. He wished he could touch base with his consultant. He suspected Neal knew much more about Edwards than he first let on. The cell battery lie only annoyed the agent.

After securing everyone's equipment and taking positions at various entrances to the mansion, Peter gave the all clear to move in. The rush of activity overwhelmed pristine beauty of the architecture. Doors slammed open and running boots slapped the marble floors. Shouts of "All clear!" echoed through the hallways as each opened room revealed nothing. Peter stayed on the bottom floor, barreling straight to the kitchen once everything in the way had cleared.

Sure enough, a large cabinet stood next to the refrigerator. Peter opened it to find one side shelved and stocked full of various packaged foodstuffs. The right hand side of the structure lacked any shelves, and two broomsticks and a mop fell out handle-first when Peter opened the left door. A giant, rectangular hole gaped in the drywall. Judging from the messy white chunks of material and dust all over the floor of the cabinet, the area recently had been disturbed. Apparently both Edwards and Neal told the truth about this one.

Peter glanced at Jones, who was behind him the whole time, and then back at the dark, narrow tunnel. He could see why Neal had sounded so on edge about being left to sit idly. "Cowboy up," he muttered.

"You say something?" Jones asked, waiting for the next move.

"No. Let's get going."

Peter's team had to jog down the tunnels single file. Peter's flashlight, along with that of every other agent, illuminated the way. He'd thought out the concept of dark, maze-like tunnels, and when they reached the first fork, he split the team in half. Jones would take his side one way, Peter would go the other. He didn't know how many more splits each tunnel would have, but he didn't want chaos in the case of many. Two teams would be enough for now.

"Here's the reflective tape," Peter said, handing a red roll of the adhesive to Jones. "Mine is white, so we'll know if the tunnels cross again. Mark every fork you take so we're guaranteed directions to get out."

"Right," Jones nodded. "And if the walkie-talkies don't work down here and we find nothing, we'll meet up at this point." Jones clicked the transmitter on his radio, and Peter's issued a burst of static. "It looks like they work for now, though. I'll see you on the other side."

With that they parted ways, and it seemed like forever when several tunnels later, Peter still found no sign of Edwards or Caffrey. He was contemplating limiting himself to three more tunnel junctions before heading back in defeat when heard something out of the ordinary. It conflicted with the uniform clunks of FBI issue boots on wood planks. He halted abruptly and put his hand up to signal quiet to the team behind him. The faint noises continued, and Peter couldn't mistake the sound of voices in the distance, no matter how dull and muffled.

********

Neal shook his head slightly to rule out a trick of his aching mind. _No,_ he decided, _definitely real._ He hadn't expected a straight shot to the outside, but he had forgotten to prepare himself for this predicament. Unable to make a decision based upon logic, as both tunnels looked exactly the same, Neal was about to take a leap of faith into the right fork when his pocket vibrated.

He skipped checking the caller ID. "Peter, seriously, we'll talk about this later."

"You have spoken with Agent Burke, then?"

Neal froze momentarily, not expecting to hear the polite voice of evil through his personal phone. "Harry, you found my cell phone number. That's really great."

"It's not hard when you're looking for a convict with case files in every county on the East Coast."

"You should see what I've got on the West Coast."

"I'm sure. So, do you find my tunnels hospitable? They're cozy, aren't they?"

"They could use some improvement."

"Really? That's too bad. Soon I'll be gone from the premises, and I'm afraid your FBI friends have all come after me. They won't even be thinking about you for at least several hours. They've got miles of tunnels to search."

"I'm aware." Neal's own words seemed to trigger a new sense of awareness. The closeness of the tunnel, the hopelessness of the maze, and the static, sharp pinpricks of discomfort whenever he took a breath all hammered down at once. A spell of dizziness had him sliding down the tunnel wall until he sat, knees bent close to his body.

"Then they'll be busy looking for evidence in my home, which they won't find. When they remember you at all, they'll find you just to send you back to jail. I'm sure Agent Burke will find out about our previous connection. Really, Caffrey, you're no freer on your two-mile leash than you were in your cell."

"Actually, I have great coffee and a newspaper every morning. I also don't have to deal with scum like you at mealtimes."

"Scum like me? Caffrey, you _are_ scum like me. You belong in my world. They've forced you to use your intellect to spy on your friends. Aren't you tired of Burke sticking his nose into your business? You may not be in jail, but you still can't do what you really want to do. Wouldn't finding and freeing Kate be so much easier without a tracking device on your ankle and the FBI stuffing its regulations down your throat?"

_I wish I could see Kate right now…_ Neal's thoughts spun slowly, leeching their way through the throbbing ache at a minimized speed. It felt strange and unfamiliar to the brilliant con. "I think you're forgetting that the terms of my release were my idea."

"But you've realized that it wasn't one of your best plans. I'm trying to help you out, Caffrey. Locking you in a tunnel was an attempt to knock some sense into you. I could have just shot you, you know."

"Help?" Neal finally realized what he should have caught onto several minutes ago. Edwards had this conversation planned ever since he found Neal's real name. "You're trying to recruit me."

"Think about it. Escape with me and you'll be free of the FBI forever. Just do a few odd jobs every once in a while, and you'll be under a blanket of my influence and finances. You can live in paradise. You can find Kate; I might even assist you."

Neal's discomforts began to fade from reality as the thief's words sunk into his mind. Finally, they were getting to the good part of this sick game. Neal welcomed a challenge with the absence of a gun in his face, and he couldn't deny the allure of the bait. "All right," he said, drawing out the syllables as if the answer took some hard thought. "I can't wander around here for three more hours, anyway. I'm game."

"Good, good!" Neal almost gagged at the overly gleeful response. "Then I will tell you where I keep my artifacts."

In the dark, a smirk graced Neal's features.


	4. Chapter 4

*****I do not own White Collar or its characters*****

Peter put a warning finger to his lips and began stepping forward as lightly as possible. The faint sound of the voices increased in volume as the team advanced. _Maybe this won't even be a chase,_ Peter hoped. They approached a leftward curve in the tunnel, and Peter glimpsed a reflection of foreign light from around the corner.

"Flashlights off," he whispered at the men behind him, and in an instant their section of the tunnel blacked out. Thrown into higher relief, the reflected light bounced unsteadily, as if someone kept moving or jostling a flashlight. Peter heard one person speaking, occasionally pausing, but couldn't make out the words with the terrible acoustics. He drew his firearm and motioned his team forward again, this time with intent of discovery.

Peter turned the corner to discover four men squeezed into a tunnel intersection. Three of them were burly but unfamiliar, and the fourth was Edwards himself, just flipping a cell phone shut. "FBI, all of you put your hands in the air!" Peter said firmly, raising his weapon. Before the sentence fully escaped his lips, though, Edwards made a hand signal that had the three unknowns whipping out their own handguns.

One of them fired before Peter could even think of pulling his own trigger. He heard the bullet whiz past his ear, barely burying itself in the dirt wall. "Retreat, retreat!" He yelled, frantically pushing everyone back in the corner. A firefight in a narrow tunnel almost guaranteed injuries and death, and apparently Edwards wasn't afraid to engage in war with federal agents.

"Damn it. Is everyone all right?" As everyone confirmed their status, he could still hear charging footsteps in the distance as his fugitive escaped into the dark passageways. He felt like punching the wall, but a dangerous situation like this left little room for emotion.

He radioed Jones. "We just sighted Edwards, there are four of them. They opened fire. I plan to follow at a distance until they get somewhere more open."

"Copy," came the response a second later. "We haven't seen anything. We'll go back to the beginning and then follow your markers. I'm your backup."

"Copy that."

Peter wished he _had_ found Neal first. They could really use that GPS to figure out Edwards' destination. Right now, all he could do was follow at a distance and hope. When he judged the sounds of running a safe distance away, he had the team follow it again. Luckily, the echo-less chambers left no confusion about which tunnels Edwards had chosen. However, after two minutes of pursuit, the sounds disappeared completely. Peter kept going until he came to another fork, but he heard nothing but silence from both choices.

This time he did pound the wall in frustration, but his anger stalled when his phone rang. Neal again, finally. "Where are you?" he answered expectantly.

"Batt…keep left…pa—" was all he got in response.

"You're breaking up, Neal." Either the con hadn't lied about imminent battery death, or one of them hit a bad patch in Edwards' wired tunnels.

More static, then, "…painting…" followed by silence as the call dropped. Peter's guilt started to gnaw at the pit of his stomach. How would he find Neal now? A tracker only worked if one knew how to get to its location. His sense of urgency increased. If he couldn't find Edwards, he would go after the con in his charge. His fondness for Neal had grown greater than he cared to admit. Any friendship, in fact, overstepped official professional boundaries. But Peter couldn't deny his pang of fear as he listened to Neal's only form of communication fizzle into the depths of the labyrinth.

He attempted to puzzle together the pieces of Neal's broken message. "Painting" could mean anything. This whole case started with a painting. Maybe Neal found it, or maybe Edwards mentioned something. "Keep left," however, rang clear as directions. Keep to the left fork, or forks. Had Neal meant to keep to the left always, or was that just a piece of the instructions? _Do I have anything left to lose in this investigation?_

"Let's keep going," Peter said, instructing the rest of the team as he aimed for the next left fork. Wherever this path led, it beat completely giving up on Neal. Four left turns later, Peter started to doubt again until his flashlight caught something shiny near the next junction. Shiny and… gold?

The watch looked familiar, though out of place on the dirty floor. Peter picked it up and immediately recognized it as he examined it up close. He'd seen the timepiece nearly everyday, decorating Neal's wrist. Peter found it near the right fork. A tiny spark of excitement made the darkness of the tunnel less bleak as Peter ploughed forward, spotting another shiny item near the next split. This time, a silver lock-pick lay on the right side.

*********

The door opened inward with an ear-grating squeak. _Finally._ To Neal, the ten minutes of navigating Edwards' tunnels without the small light of his cell phone seemed like an hour. Edwards' long-windedness ate his battery, and he was uncertain of what Peter heard of his last call. He counted on the fed's sharpness and competency, because if Peter lacked either tonight, Neal's life lay at Harry Edwards' mercy.

The cavity's blackness matched that of the tunnel, but supposedly this room used electricity. Neal felt for the hanging chain near the wall to his right and got a grip on it after some fumbling. With a light metallic zip, a single bulb dimly lit the room at its center, and Neal's eyes widened in reverence.

The circular chamber's diameter measured only about twenty feet, but literally hundreds of valuable artifacts crammed into the space. Sculptures, antique furniture, even Tiffany lamps, all of them authentic at least to Neal's casual overview. Instinctually, he wanted to examine every last one; see them, hear them, and feel them, knowing their histories and values. The thrill of forbidden objects would have overwhelmed him if he didn't have a job to finish. Even if he survived, if he failed to fix this he would find himself back in a maximum security cell, and effectively that would end his life as well.

Paintings, all framed and carefully preserved, leaned up against the perimeter on the right. Beautiful, every last one, but he stopped short when his eyes landed on the cool colors and subtle undertones of an unmistakable Vermeer. The characteristic daylight from a window off to the left reflected off the serene face of the singer, her accompanists lost eternally in continuo. Neal gripped the elaborate frame in both hands. He hardly believed he currently feasted his eyes on the most valuable stolen painting in the world.

His daydream cut off abruptly when he heard rapid footsteps approaching in the tunnel. Neal lifted the twenty-four by twenty-seven inch painting with a grunt. The frame's weight made his ribcage protest with a sharp pain. Frantically, he ignored it as he searched for an exit, or anything else remotely helpful. There had to be a back way out, right? Instead, a glint of polished steal caught the corner of his eye. A substantial section of metal etchings leaned next to the paintings, many sized close to that of a standard sheet of paper. Neal did not recognize the artists; shiny newness eliminated the old classics. He paid little attention to the also unknown designs, as the glare from the dim light made his vision spin again. He only heard Edwards' voice nearing the doorway, and without another thought leaned _The Concert_ carefully against a wall and swept several steel etchings into his arms.

**So, it's not my favorite chapter for various reasons, but I'm pretty sure it's penultimate at this point. I like art history too much to resist the description. Thank you for the reviews!**


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